The Life Given
by Pebble
Summary: The story of a Pokémon. Told in the first person. Rated preemptively.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon. I don't own any of the Pokemon, either. I don't own the cities, or anything else in here from pokemon. Most of the characters are mine.

The little bodies wriggled, pushing against each other as they squirmed blindly, finding the warm body of their mother and snuggling close.

Their eyes still sealed shut, their skin furless, they wormed their way towards her stomach and began to feed, milk dripping down their chins.

Mother was warm. Mother was safe. Mother kept them fed and protected and happy. Sister and brothers scrambled over each other and wrestled every day. After a time, their eyes opened fully, and they began perceiving the world around them in a new light.

The world was huge. Blades of grass, green and smooth, towered above their heads. Rocks to scramble on top of, batting at a brother's face, but Mother just stepped over them. They could dig, like Mother, but not so deep. The ground was solid, and their paws were small and still weak. Vibrations from larger animals walking were easy to avoid. Easy to scamper away and hide and wait, and when they were gone, to play again.

Life was learning. About worms, that come from the ground and wiggled strangely towards a puddle. About birds, that were so high they disappeared into the sky, but sometimes came down, came to the puddle, bit the worm and flew again. About sister's fur, sprouting suddenly and in tufts. Purple and fluffy, it soon began appearing on all their bodies. Itchy and unusual, but warmer, so they no longer needed to sleep in Mother's lap.

And as they explored the world, they grew. Completely covered in fur, white on their faces and paws, purple everywhere else. Half the size of Mother, and much more rambunctious than they had been. Pinkish red eyes and long whiskers observed the world, but hardly stopped to pay attention. Now was the time to play.


	2. Chapter 2

I was one of the last ones to hear about it. "It's like the berries, but better! And wet!" That was all I knew about the thing when Skert came to tell me, eager and hurrying me along. "You've just got to try some!" he exclaimed, stumbling over a nut in his haste to turn around.

We dashed through the grass, Skert in the lead. "We were watching the little human, when it just fell from the sky! The short one was making all sorts of noises, stomping like it wanted to kill us! Then one of thee bigger ones came, and took the baby away. It's just sitting there, ours for the taking! Hurry up, before it's gone!" With that, Skert put on an extra burst of speed, and took off ahead. I had some close encounters with a few rocks as I tried to keep up.

"Wait till you see it!" Skert called from up ahead, plowing roughly through the grass and leaving an easy to follow trail behind him. "It's like... like snow! But orange! And so good... You'll see!" He glanced over his shoulder at me, panting wildly and nearly tripping.

"Just up here...!" And with that, he nearly belly flopped out of the grass, onto a large patch of bare ground. I could see something that looked orange through the grass.

Plunging forward and out of my way, Skert rushed over to a giant orange blob, melting in the sun, and with large holes in it where my siblings had already been eating it. Large puddles of the melted goop were strewn about, and everyone was licking, biting, and pawing the sticky thing.

"What _is_ it?" I asked. "Who knows? Who cares? It tastes great!" Skert scooped out a pawful of the stuff, stuffing it noisily into his mouth. "Try some!" I watched one of my brothers pressing his face into the blob, my nose twitching. It did smell good. I went to one of the puddles, tasting it carefully.

"Woah!" "Yeah, I know!" "That's amazing!" I shoved my mouth into the puddle, eating as much as possible. The taste! The flavor was overwhelming, like a hundred berries were in my mouth at once! I'd never had anything like it! The puddle simply wasn't enough. I scrambled over to the glob of half-eaten, melting, delicious goop. Only this didn't feel like the goop from the puddle. It was cold! Stinging, biting sensations filled my mouth, expanding through my whole face! My whole head!

Gasping, I wrenched my head face away from it. "It hurts!" I exclaimed. "You'll get used to it, just try some more," Skert said unconcernedly. I turned back to the blob of goop, bracing myself this time.

Before I could try it again, though, someone shoved my to the side. "Hey!" My brother Anyoo glanced at me, his entire head and shoulders covered in the stuff, whiskers dripping with it. "Sorry, I didn't see you," he lied casually before continuing on. I glared after him. _I wonder where he was headed looking like that_, I thought. But I would not be distracted for long. Though it was already half the size it was when I'd first seen it, the orange blob called out to my nose with it's wonderful scent, and I pressed my face eagerly into the sticky mass.

Again, the flavor erupted inside my mouth, along with the biting coldness, but I braced myself and waited, half of my face submerged in it, until feeling returned to my mouth. I don't know how long I ate, following the more frozen parts that lasted longer, my stomach rumbling with the onslaught of the icy orange goodness.

I knew Skert and the others were still there, but I paid them no mind. I was busy. It was because of this, I'm sure, that I somehow missed the vibrations. Something big was coming, and I just stood there with the front half of my face buried in the creamy blob of flavor. I first noticed that my siblings were leaving when one of them scrambled hurriedly past me, stumbling on my tail accidentally.

"Watch it!" I called, annoyed. Then I felt someone else run into my rear. "Where are you going so fast?" I asked. "It's still here, don't you want some mo-" I'd just noticed their faces. They were all panicked, looking for a place to hide.

"Move!" Skert slammed into me, sending us both tumbling. That's when I finally saw the human. The colossal, petrifying, lumbering human. Skert seized me around the middle, and practically threw me away from the man. Regaining my senses, I ran under my own power.

Maybe it was the mind numbing effects of the freezing orange blob, but I couldn't think right. I knew the man was behind us, I could feel him advancing quicker and quicker, could hear one of my sisters screaming, could hear her scream fading as the man lifted her into the air, but I couldn't understand what it meant. Couldn't grasp the fact that he was right behind me and Skert, that he could snatch us up and take us away, too. I knew it all, but it didn't make any sense.

As I struggled to think, my body sped along, but I wasn't in control. I began feeling slightly detached. I watched from behind my own eyes as the grass swept by me, as Skert scrambled along next to me at top speed, eyes bulging in fear. I knew my mouth was hanging open, and I was letting out little whining squeaks in my panic, but I couldn't think about it. My brain wasn't functioning in a way that would connect me to my body.

I was more perceptive than normal, noticing every tiny detail of things that I would normally have been too distracted to note. I saw, as though in slow motion, the thick blades of grass hitting my face. I felt the man's presence as he made a snatch for Skert, his enormous hand swinging through the air as Skert dodged to the side. I could hear the gigantic human's labored breathing, his lungs impossibly big, his breaths too long, too far apart to be normal. My mind seemed to be floating around inside my head, barely connected but perceiving the events taking place around me none-the-less. It was an incredibly frustrating feeling.

I knew everything that was going on. And I saw the roots portuding through the earth ahead of me, but try as I might, I couldn't tell my body they were there. I tripped. My belly hit the ground, and in some remote part of me, that hurt. My legs had splayed out, but were already scrambling to push me forward, to send me away from the human, without even trying to stand up properly first. I fell again, this time on my head. My body gasped for breath as I lay there, telling myself to move and getting no response. _Get up!_ I thought to myself. _Move!_

The breath was knocked out of me once again, this time by enormous fingers that reached underneath my belly, wrapping around my entire body and lifting me into the air. They pressed down on the top of my head, and into the underside of my jaw, effectively closing my jaws and preventing me from biting him. His grip was hard, and I felt my legs thrashing, my claws trying to scratch him, hurt him, make him release me. I couldn't think of anything else to do, which was just as well, because I'd never have been able to tell my body to do it.

My senses were becoming duller, my mind more disconnected than ever. I felt wind rushing past me as he carried me through the air, and then a plunging sensation in my stomach as he let go. I felt myself stop almost immediately, however. He'd put me into a very small space, and now he was closing the ceiling, trapping me.

Groggily, I looked around. I could still see the ground rushing past, could feel myself being tossed about as the human ran. Everything in here was yellow. Everything outside looked yellow. I was still purple and white, though. And orange. I still had that sticky stuff on my face and whiskers.

I licked one of them clean slowly, trying to taste it, but it was getting difficult to feel anything. I couldn't see my paw anymore. It was just purple. And yellow. I couldn't think at all. Skert was running below me. The man hadn't caught him yet, then. I wondered how he got all the way down there. I wondered where Mother was. I missed her. If she came to save me, would she be yellow like Skert and the rest of the world? Did the orange stuff taste yellow now? If the man grabbed me right then, I don't think I could have fought him. Maybe he'd give me back to Mother.

I wondered if I was turning into a flower. I fainted.


	3. Chapter 3

A blurry world greeted my eyes as I opened them slowly, groggily. Everything looked faded and far away. Unable to think properly yet, I licked my paw absentmindedly. It tasted all wrong. It wasn't my own flavor, or dirt, or the orange thing. It was sharp and unnatural. Wait. The orange thing.

I jerked my head up in alarm as the memories came rushing back. Running with Skert, enjoying the cold flavor, everyone scrambling over my back end, running, running... The human! I cast about for a sign of him, my eyes twitching from side to side, nostrils flaring, but he wasn't around. He had been, I could smell him, but he must've left. I tried to breathe normally. I could never get home without thinking properly. I closed my eyes or a moment.

When I opened them again, I took in everything I could of my surroundings. I was laying in a clear, open space with a tree nearby, and with patches of grass sprouting up randomly amidst all the dirt. The grass was soft, and I had been resting my head on a patch of it. The ground looked slightly damp further from the tree, but where I was laying seemed dry enough. I heard birds singing somewhere above me, I saw a caterpie on the tree, and the leaves rustled softly in a gentle breeze.

Things could be a lot worse, I decided. I stood up - or at least, I thought I did. My legs hadn't moved. I tried again, focusing on it this time. My legs pushed under me slowly, not responding well at all. When I began raising myself up, they shook badly, so I carefully sat back on my haunches. Nothing hurt when I moved it, and I couldn't understand what had happened to me. I tried again, slowly lifting my rear until I was standing, though it took entirely too much effort. My tail dragged across the ground as I limped slowly over to the tree. In this condition, if the human came back, there'd be no way I could outrun him. But walking seemed to help, and by the time I reached the massive roots I was almost walking normally, abeit very slowly.

A weed sprouted between two large extensions of the roots, and I shuffled behind it, turning my back to the tree, and lay down somewhat more quickly than I had intended to. I would keep an eye out for the human, I decided, and in the meantime I could rest a bit more before attempting to find my way home.

I wondered where my sister that he had captured was. Had my other siblings managed to escape? Did he find Mother? The last thought scared me, and I turned my mind away from it. Mother was too clever to be caught. I remembered being in the yellow. I wondered how I'd gotten out of it, and why the human hadn't found me yet. I must be unusually lucky to have escaped.

I noticed something just then. There was ground in the air. A little patch of ground, and it was just floating there. When I moved my head, it moved slightly, too. It reminded me of water showing the sky. A reflection. There was a reflection of the ground in the air. But what was reflecting it? I moved forward slowly, watching the ground move toward the tree. It could go right up against it.

As I stared at it in wonderment, I heard someone calling in an unusual voice.

"Hello? Hey you, Rattata!"

I looked about quickly, but could not identify the source of the voice.

"Up here!"

I looked up toward the tree again. It was the Caterpie calling to me.

"Yes? Hello?" My voice seemed weak like my legs had, and it warbled slightly.

"How did you get in there?" he asked me.

"In... where, sorry?"

"In there! In that glass thing, how did you get in there?"

Perplexed, I asked him, "What's glass?"

He crawled steadily down the tree, and to my surprise, he crawled right out into the air horizontally. It was like magic.

"Y'see this?" he asked. "What I'm standing on? It's glass. Well, you can see right through it, actually. I didn't know someone as big as you could get in it, though."

I had never been referred to as big in my life. I had also never heard of a tree growing 'glass' before. "I don't know how I got in here, I just woke up." I replied. "I didn't even know I was _in_ anywhere until just now."

"Ah, well there's your problem, isn't it?" he said, crawling headfirst down towards the grass. "I bet the professor put you in there then, eh?"

"Um... what's a professor?" I asked, feeling rather stupid at this point.

"The human. The one who lives around here. Everyone calls him 'Professor'."

Now I was more confused than ever. I cautiously reached out to the glass, touching it gently with one paw. It was slightly warm from the sun, and very hard. The caterpie had reached the ground, and I saw that he was much bigger than me.

"Is he the big one? The one that took me and put me in the yellow? He put me here?" I was starting to feel unsettled. The glass was very solid, and I wasn't a good digger.

"Probably. He studies us, you know. I've never been put in anything myself, but he does like watching me." He seemed casual and relaxed, and I hoped that meant that the human wouldn't hurt me.

"Do you.. do you know how I can get out?" I inquired, putting both paws on the glass and leaning. It didn't budge.

"Not like that, I'm sure. You could probably dig out, though, it's not very hard dirt-" he stopped. "How old are you, anyway?"

"Not very," I replied. "And I'm not a good digger." The numb feeling had worn off with my alarm, and I scratched unsuccessfully at the ground.

"Hey, calm down. You'll be fine, and he'll probably let you go soon, so just stay calm, okay?"

If he meant to be reassuring, he'd failed. I scurried back to the roots, looking for any sort of hole I could squeeze into. I found nothing promising. It seemed there really wasn't any way out. Examining the glass, I noticed a thin crack in the ceiling in the shape of a square. A grey part jutted out of the glass on one end of the square, right next to the tree trunk. I scrambled up the bark and scratched at the crack, but again to no avail. I clung to the tree and looked around at the clearing from my new vantage point.

"That's where he puts you in," the caterpie commented. I'd forgotten about him for a moment.

The Professor didn't seem to be coming, and I couldn't get the glass to open, which meant that I was really, truly stuck. I dropped back to the ground, sniffing around the weed. Nobody else had been around it recently. Nobody except me and the Professor.

"Does it grow from the tree?" I asked.

"What?"

"The glass."

No, of course not. The professor built that box," he chuckled. It sounded weird and garbled.

"Box?" I went back to the caterpie, putting my front paws on the glass again so that I was eye level with him.

"That's what the thing you're in is called. A box. It holds things, and there's only one way out." He turned his head slightly to one side so his eye was better lined up with my head. "Only the professor can open boxes like that. Not even other humans can open it."

"Oh." I didn't know what to make of that. "What's your name?" I'd never talked to someone for so long without knowing their name before.

"Name? I don't have a name."

"What do you mean?" I demanded. "Everyone has a name!"

"I have no name," he clarified, "because no one named me. I assume your mother named you?"

"Of course."

I don't know my mother, and she never named me."

I was shocked. He laughed at the look of surprise on my face, again in that odd way.

"Rattata are born in bunches, with many siblings, and grow up with their mothers. Caterpie aren't like that. I raised myself, I fed myself, I grew up without a mother, and I was not named by anyone." He wiggled his antenna. "It's really not that hard," he added dispassionately. "I've always thought it was pointless to need someone to do things for you at first, instead of just learning to do thing on your own as you will for the rest of your life."

Again, I was at a loss for words. I could not imagine life without Mother. I missed her more now that I was thinking about her, yet I couldn't help but feel that the caterpie was wrong about growing up. Better to have siblings and a mother than to live a lonely, hard life. I slid off the glass and sat down again.

"Of course, things are different for you. Life must have been so much easier and so much more fun for you than what I'm describing, am I right?" He stared at me, not unkindly. I nodded.

His antenna moved again. "Since you're so young, why don't I keep an eye out for you?" he offered. "I know how things work around here, so I might be able to help you out a bit." He was crawling up the side of the box, back towards the tree.

"Do you know what usually happens to anyone in here?" I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.

"Oh, he usually just keeps them in there for a while, feeds them, watches them, and lets them go after a while."

"How long?"

"That depends on you. Want to get out of there as fast as possible? I recommend being as boring as possible. Eat, sleep, pace around the inside of the box, try digging out, and don't do anything interesting. He'll get bored of you eventually, and he'll let you out."

That sounded like it could take a long time. I wanted to see Mother again. I wanted to see Skert. And where was my sister that had been taken?

He sat on top of the box near the square, peering down at me. "Or, next time he shows up, he'll probably feed you. He has to open the box for that. If you're a good climber, I think I might know how to get you out of there."

I perked my ears in interest.


End file.
